Pubdate: Fri June 16, 2000
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/grass16f.html
Author: Roger Ebert

GRASS

Unapix Films presents a documentary produced and directed by Ron Mann.
Narrated by Woody Harrelson. Written by Solomon Vesta. Running time: 80
minutes. Rated R (for drug content).

BY ROGER EBERT
It is agreed by reasonable people that one of the results of anti-drug laws
is to support the price of drugs and make their sale lucrative. If drugs
were legalized, the price would fall, and the motive to promote them would
fade away. Since anyone who wants drugs can get them now, usage would be
unlikely to increase. Crime would go down when addicts didn't have to steal
to support their habits, and law enforcement would benefit from the
disappearance of drug-financed bribery, payoffs and corruption.

All of this is so obvious that the opposition to the legalization of drugs
seems inexplicable--unless you ask who would be hurt the most by the repeal
of drug laws. The international drug cartels would be put out of business.
Drug enforcement agencies would be unnecessary. Drug wholesalers and
retailers would have to seek other employment. If it is true (as often
charged) that the CIA has raised money by dealing in drugs, it would lose
this source of funds free from congressional accounting. Who would benefit
if drugs were legalized? The public--because both drug usage and its
associated crimes would diminish.

Despite the logic of this argument, few political candidates have had the
nerve to question the way our drug laws act as a price support system, and
encourage drug usage. "Grass," a new documentary by Ron Mann, traces the
history of the laws against one drug--marijuana--back to their origins in
anti-Mexican prejudice at the turn of the century, and forward through
periods when marijuana was seen as part of the Red conspiracy. When New
York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia commissioned a study of the weed, his
commission found the "sociological, psychological and medical" threat of
the substance was "exaggerated." He called for its decriminalization. Many
years later, so did President Jimmy Carter--until he had to lay low after
an aide was nabbed on cocaine charges.

Other presidents, of course, have enthusiastically supported anti-drug laws
(Richard M. Nixon going so far as to swear in Elvis Presley in the war
against narcotics). "Grass" traces much of our national drug policy to one
man, Harry J. Anslinger, the first drug czar, who like J. Edgar Hoover
created a fiefdom that was immune to congressional criticism.

"Grass" is not much as a documentary. It's a cut-and-paste job, assembling
clips from old and new anti-drug films and alternating them with pro-drug
footage from the Beats, the flower power era and so on. The narration by
pro-hemp campaigner Woody Harrelson is underlined by the kind of lurid
graphics usually seen on 1940s coming attractions trailers.

The film is unlikely to tell many of its viewers anything they don't
already know, and unlikely to change our national drug policy. The
situation will continue indefinitely, corrupting politicians and whole
nations with billions of dollars of illegal profits. Those who use drugs
will continue to do so. Others will abstain, die or find a way to stop,
just as they do now. Prohibition proved that when the government tries to
come between the people and what the people want to do, laws are not
effective; statistically, Prohibition coincided with a considerable
increase in drinking.

Am I in favor of drugs? Not at all. Drug abuse has led to an epidemic of
human suffering. Grass seems relatively harmless, but I have not known
anyone who used hard drugs and emerged undamaged. Still, in most societies
throughout human history, drug use has been treated realistically--as a
health problem, not a moral problem. Have our drug laws prevented anyone
from using drugs? Apparently not. Have they given us the world's largest
prison population, cost us billions of dollars and helped create the most
violent society in the first world? Yes. From an objective point of
view--what's the point?

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.